By Megan OrtizReutersOctober 21. 2013 1:18PMSPARKS, Nev. - A student shot and killed a teacher and wounded two classmates before killing himself at his middle school in northern Nevada shortly before classes began on Monday, law enforcement officials said.

Both of the wounded students from Sparks Middle School were rushed to Renown Regional Medical Center in nearby Reno, where one of them underwent emergency surgery, said Tom Miller, acting Sparks police chief.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene at the school in the town of Sparks, located just east of Reno, after the gunfire erupted in an outdoor area as students were arriving for the school day.

"A kid started getting mad and he pulled out a gun and shoots my friend, one of my friends at least," a seventh-grade student identified as Andrew told local KOLO-TV. "And then he walked up to a teacher and says back up, the teacher started backing up and he pulled the trigger."

"The teacher was just lying there and he was limp, he didn't know what to do, he was just in a lot of pain," he told KOLO.

"And me and five other friends went to him and said come on we've got to get him to safety. We picked him up, carried him a little bit far and we left him because our vice principal came along and said go, go, go get to safety, get to safety. So we left the teacher there and we went to safety," Andrew said.

The incident marked the latest in a string of shooting rampages across the United States in recent years, some of them at schools, that have reignited a debate over gun control.

In Connecticut last December, 20 students and six adults were shot to death by a gunman at a school in Newtown before the attacker took his own life in what is considered one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history.

In Sparks, a 13-year-old eighth grader, Kyle Nucum, told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he heard about half a dozen shots. Student Michelle Hernandez told the newspaper that she had seen the suspect before the shooting began.

"I heard him saying, 'Why you people making fun of me, why you laughing at me,'" Hernandez told the paper.

Previous story follows:

SPARKS, Nev., Oct 21 (Reuters) - Four people, including students, were hurt after a shooter opened fire at a middle school in the northern Nevada city of Sparks on Monday, a county official said.Local media reported that two people had died, including the shooter.

"There are four casualties," Washoe County's emergency manager, Aaron Kenneston said. He could not immediately say whether any of the four were fatally wounded or provide information about their identities. He did say students were among those hurt.

The Reno Gazette-Journal reported that two people, including the shooter, had died in the incident in Sparks, a town in northern Nevada just east of Reno.

Two boys wounded in the shooting were hospitalized at Renown Regional Medical Center in critical condition, said Angela Rambo, a spokeswoman for the hospital.A police dispatcher said there was no ongoing threat. The dispatcher could not provide any information about the shooter.

Kenneston said the emergency call reporting the shooting came in at about 7:30 a.m. local time.Terry Bartek, a spokeswoman for the Washoe County School District, which includes Sparks, did not know if classes were already in session when the shooting occurred. Classes at the middle school and a neighboring elementary school were canceled as a precaution, Bartek said.

"Students from the actual school where the incident happened are being moved to another site to be picked up by parents," she said.

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